This invention relates generally to an apparatus which is useful for managing programs for the supply of routine patient needs, e.g. linen, blankets, or mattress pads, primarily in health care institutions. More particularly, this invention comprises a bedding change indicator for use in health care institutions to record and indicate when a patient's linen should be changed.
Health care institutions, such as hospitals, have unusually demanding needs for items such as clean bed sheets and pillow cases (hereinafter sometimes referred to as "linen" or "bedding".) Cleanliness in such institutions is extremely important, and the cleanliness needs of particular patients varies a great deal from one to another. Just as different patients have different needs in food and exercise, so too different patients have different needs for changes of bedding; a patient that has been in surgery should have linen changed more frequently than a patient in the hospital for tests, treatments, and x-rays. Another consideration in bedding needs, distinct from cleanliness, is that bedridden patients should preferably have linen changed every day to prevent decubitus ulcers. Ambulatory or "self-care" patients who can walk and move around may not need to have their linen changed every day. But whether a patient is ambulatory or bedridden may change during his stay, further complicating the bedding needs of particular patients. Still another factor is that as many as three shifts of nursing and other hospital staff may be involved in determining a patient's bedding needs. These and other factors known to those of skill in art result in an unusually complex pattern of bedding needs in health care institutions.
Due, at least in part to the complexity of such bedding needs and the potential risks of not consistently following procedures for quality health care, present health care institutions typically change every patient's bedding every day. The current practice requires a significant amount of time from nurses, orderlies and other persons as well as out-of-pocket expenses. But no other technique has been available heretofore which would enable the nurses and other personnel to adequately and consistently provide for specialized bedding needs of individual patients.
"Cost Allocation" presents another problem for institutional bedding control. Although patients with large bedding needs create greater costs for institutions than do patients with small bedding needs, the institutions have no effective way to allocate the costs incurred to the patients responsible. As a result, all patients are charged equally for these costs, even if their needs are not equal.